Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says Israel’s negotiating team in Doha is utilising «all options» to reach a deal.

This includes a potential deal that would lead to an end to the fighting, in a clear change of approach, writes the Times of Israel.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) says the team is working towards two options: either US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s proposal for a short-term ceasefire and limited exchange of hostages, or an agreement to end the war through a comprehensive release of all hostages in Gaza and the complete surrender and exile of Hamas.

– Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, the negotiating delegation in Doha is working even at this time to exhaust all possibilities to reach an agreement – either according to the Witkoff draft or within the framework of an end to the war, which would include the release of all hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip, the PMO said in a statement.

– Thanks to [Netanyahu’s] policy of exerting military and diplomatic pressure, the government has so far succeeded in bringing home 197 hostages, and is doing everything in its power to bring back the 58 remaining prisoners.

Israel has always been clear that the war will not end without Hamas being destroyed as a military and governing power. Netanyahu has previously insisted on only agreeing to a temporary ceasefire.

Before the prime minister’s statement on the negotiations in Qatar began, the former Israeli hostage negotiator, Brigadier General Oren Setter, who resigned from the team in October, was criticised.

In an interview in February, he said Netanyahu had missed two opportunities last year to strike a hostage truce deal with Hamas.

Setter «undermined government policy through deliberate leaks and biased cabinet briefings that damaged negotiations, endangered our hostages and repeated Hamas’s false propaganda,» the PMO writes.

– His claims that a deal could have been reached earlier are completely baseless. As senior U.S. officials have repeatedly testified, Hamas refused for many months to enter into negotiations and was the only obstacle to a deal,” the statement said.

Whether Hamas will accept an agreement where they themselves will be sent into exile remains to be seen. Another question is how Israel will be able to verify that all Hamas terrorists are actually sent out of Gaza.

There is certainly a possibility that such an agreement will only lead to the possibility of reorganising and rebuilding Hamas.